4 minute read
Top-level sports and study
Train, study, sleep, repeat
With meticulous plans and iron discipline, gymnast Frank Rijken and rower Dogus Köker show demonstrate that studying and top-level sports can be combined.
Text: Fenna van der Grient
Frank Rijken, gymnast “I see many similarities between CEOs and top athletes”
“W hen I was a little boy, I used to go to the gym regularly, because my sis ter was a high-level gymnast. I saw the trampoline and the foam pit, and I thought: I want to train here too! When I was about nine years old, I started, and I turned out to be pretty good. I am most proud of my participation in the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. It was the first time that the Dutch team qualified, that was very special.
Vault and parallel bars are my favorite events. I think I have a good chance of getting European and World Championship medals for those events. I would also like to participate in the World University Games in 2021 and I am already looking forward to the Olympic Games in 2024. I train eight times a week and combine that with my studies in business economics. My passion really lies with economics, and I like the fact that this bachelor’s program is very broad. The tricky thing about the combination with gymnastics is that the big tournaments actually always fall around exam weeks. That means you have to get very creative, and you have to be able to plan and communicate well. I don’t feel like I’m really missing out on student life; there are only a few things that I can do a little less often. I also live on my own and not in a student bunker with a lot of roommates. But I’ve been able to have fun holidays and I really can go out evenings outside of the competition period.
I am very glad that I am so well supported by Tilburg University. When I first spoke to Ferenc Jongejan, the top-sports coordinator, he told me that, of course, they are bound by rules, but that with good communication we can come up with a solution for everything. Together with academic coordinator Natascha van Enckevort, we have always succeeded. The competencies I have gained in top-level
BRAM BELLONI
sports I can put to good use in my studies. You learn discipline, consistency, and dealing with difficult periods and emotions. I also learned how to coach a group of younger athletes. I think that could help me in business later on. For example, I see a lot of similarities between CEOs of companies and top athletes.”
Dogus Köker, rower
“W hen I came to the Netherlands to study, I had no intention of playing top-level sports here. Before this, I was in Turkey’s national ski team and I have been playing top-level sports since I was eight years old. But during orientation week, members of the rowing club put me on a rowing machine drunk. It turned out I had the fastest time of the week and I was soon persuaded to start rowing. I picked it up quickly, partly because the leg movement was similar to skiing. During my studies, I rowed for the national team of Turkey, training twelve to fourteen times a week. In 2015, we finished fourth in the under 23 World Championship, I’m very proud of that. My experiences in rowing, the ultimate team sport, inspired me to move on to the Strategic Management master’s program after my bachelor’s degree in economics. I’ve seen how good coaches can make something very special out of a combination of individuals and wanted to learn how to manage people that way as well.
The combination of top-level sports and studying is only possible with a lot of structure and iron self-discipline. I’m not naturally disciplined and tend to postpone things until the last moment. But because of sports, I had to plan so well that I knew in advance exactly what the next month was going to look like, and when I could study. I knew that if I didn’t do it at those times, I wouldn’t pass my exams. That gave me the self-discipline to stay on the right path. In sports, you also have to perform at a specific moment. During my top-level sports career, I learned how to deal with the stress that’s involved, which also comes in handy for exams. In order to perform optimally, you have to make sure that your sleep and eating rhythm remain constant. Sometimes, this resulted in me sitting in the back of the lecture hall, putting away a kilo of cottage cheese.
The university was also very helpful. If, for example, my exams coincided with a selection or competition, I looked for a solution together with Ferenc Jongejan, the top-sports coordinator, and Linda van Klink, the program coordinator for economics. A year and a half ago, I finished my studies and now I teach at Tilburg University and work at a rowing company.”
BRAM BELLONI
The right balance
At TiSEM, we try to guide top athletes as well as possible in their combination of high-level sports and studying. Together, we look at the right planning with regard to their courses and to the bottlenecks they experience. Where possible, we solve these bottlenecks, for example by relaxing deadlines and the attendance requirement or by granting an extra exam opportunity and a postponed binding recommendation on the continuation of studies. We always try to find a suitable and feasible solution together. Top athletes are used to working in a disciplined way. The ambitions they have are great to see and that makes it fun to ensure that they can find the right balance between study and sports.
